44 IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 



any catalogue or index at the British Museum, 

 though I happily possess a copy of it. 



In the body of The Innocent Epicure, before 

 mentioned in Chapter III., Walton, Cotton and 

 Venables are referred to in the lines : — 



" Hail ! Great Triumvirate of Angling ! Hail ! " 



Hallam has said of Tlie Complete Angler, that 

 "its simplicity, its sweetness, its natural grace, 

 and happy intermixture of graver strains with the 

 precepts of angling, have rendered this book 

 deservedly popular" {Literary History, Vol. IV., 

 p. 323). Charles Lamb, in a letter to Coleridge, 

 wrote : " Among all your quaint readings did you 

 ever light upon Walton's Complete Angler? I 

 asked you the question once before ; it breathes 

 the very spirit of innocence, purity and simplicity 

 of heart ; there are many choice old verses inter- 

 spersed in it ; it would sweeten a man's temper at 

 any time to read it, it would christianise every 

 discordant angry passion ; pray make yourself 

 acquainted with it." Its remarkable power to 

 fascinate is most amusingly shown by Washington 

 Irving in one of his chapters in The Sketch Booh. 

 William Hazlitt wrote : "Walton's Complete Angler 

 makes that work a great favourite with sports- 

 men ; the alloy of an amiable humanity, and the 

 modest but touching description of familiar inci- 

 dents and rural objects scattered through it, have 



